Saturday Night Fever began as a magazine cover story article in the June 7, 1976 issue of New York magazine by British rock journalist Nik Cohn called "Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night." It followed a working class Brooklyn teen named Vincent and his friends as they blew off steam at the local Bay Ridge disco 2001 Odyssey every weekend (twenty years later Cohn admitted that Vincent and the article were total fabrications). It was a scrappy urban story that struck a chord. It was about more than dancing at a disco. It was about aimless youth trying to find meaning in their lives on the dance floor.

One of the first people to recognize the cinematic potential of the magazine article was Australian entertainment mogul Robert Stigwood who immediately snapped up the rights to the story for $90,000. "The whole thing was completely baffling to me," said Nik Cohn according to the 2000 book The Ultimate Biography of the Bee Gees by Melinda Bilyeu, Hector Cook and Andrew Mon Hughes. "I mean, people didn't make films out of articles or short stories, films were films, magazines were magazines, sometimes books were turned into films but never magazine stories."

Stigwood knew instinctively that the project would be perfect for his new client, the young up-and-coming actor John Travolta. Travolta had auditioned for Stigwood a few years earlier for a part in the Broadway musical Jesus Christ Superstar, which he didn't get. However, Stigwood had watched Travolta emerge as a talented and versatile actor with parts in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie, the popular television movie The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976) and the sitcom Welcome Back, Kotter which had made him a teen idol playing lovable sweathog Vinnie Barbarino. Stigwood was impressed with what he saw and signed Travolta to a three picture deal in 1976 for an impressive $1 million. At the press reception for the deal announcement, Travolta quipped, "I auditioned for [Stigwood] five years ago, and I just heard back!" It was a deal that expressed a tremendous amount of faith in Travolta's talent, even if others thought Stigwood was nuts. According to former RSO (Robert Stigwood Organization) executive Bill Oakes, "Everyone thought it was madness because nobody had ever made the transition from television to movie stardom. So, a lot of us thought to pay a million dollars for Vinnie Barbarino is going to make us a laughing stock."

Stigwood, however, knew better. Travolta was a dedicated actor determined to break out of television and become a movie star. At the encouragement of his girlfriend at the time, actress Diana Hyland, Travolta signed on to star in Saturday Night Fever believing it could possibly be the breakout role of his career.

To turn Nik Cohn's article into a feature length screenplay, Robert Stigwood hired Norman Wexler, whose previous writing credits included the 1973 Al Pacino film Serpico. Wexler fleshed out the story and characters, changing the hero's name from Vincent to Tony Manero along the way. Wexler's story, which became Saturday Night Fever, was a gritty drama with some rough scenes and language meant to give the film an authenticity that was true to the characters and situations. "I wrote Saturday Night Fever purely, organically, scene by scene, trying to imagine this boy's life," said Wexler in a 1996 interview. "I thought there ought to be a bit of a message: that with a little bit of luck and guts you can break out of your social and family programming."

The first draft of Wexler's script came in at a lengthy 149 pages, but everyone knew that it was something special. According to Robert Stigwood's assistant at the time Kevin McCormick, "It was way, way, way, way too long, but quite wonderful. I think what Norman did so well was to create a family situation that had real truth, an accurate look at how men related to women in that moment, in ways that you would never get away with now."

With the screenplay in place for Saturday Night Fever, Robert Stigwood and Kevin McCormick set out to find a director. According to McCormick in a 2007 interview with Vanity Fair, one agent said to him at the time, "Kid, my directors do movies. They don't do magazine articles." The very same agent later called McCormick back and said, "Kid, you're in luck. My client came in and looked at this, and he's interested. But you should see his movie first." The movie was Rocky (1976) and the director was John Avildsen. Rocky, the future Academy Award winner for Best Picture of 1976, had not yet been released, but word of mouth on it was very good. "So we saw Rocky on Monday," said McCormick, "and we made a deal."

Meanwhile, to prepare for his part, which would require tremendous athleticism for the dancing sequences, John Travolta had to get into the best physical shape of his life. Travolta, who had a natural tendency to put on weight, quickly shed twenty pounds by running two miles a day and dancing for three hours every night. A choreographer, Lester Wilson, and a dance coach, Deney Terrio, were brought in to teach Travolta the moves that would dazzle on the disco floor. "I told him he should think of himself as Valentino from the waist up and Elvis from the waist down," said Terrio according to the book Travolta: The Life. "I taught him that disco movement must be bold and macho and aggressive. The trouble was that John is naturally quiet and fairly timid." At first Travolta was worried that the dance moves were so athletic that he wouldn't be able to pull them off and briefly considered quitting the film because of it. However, Robert Stigwood convinced him to stick with it, and Travolta worked hard and soon gained confidence on the dance floor. "He was hungry," said Terrio. "He was easy to teach and he just wanted it so bad."

Travolta's schedule was exhausting - especially since he was still obligated to his hit TV show Welcome Back, Kotter, which was shooting simultaneously. In addition, Travolta was going through a personal crisis at the time - his girlfriend, Diana Hyland, was battling terminal cancer. It was a huge blow to Travolta. Still, Hyland had been the one who had encouraged him to make Saturday Night Fever, and she wanted him to continue on with the film despite her illness.

To research his role, John Travolta would also go to local discos incognito to observe the scene, though it usually didn't take people long to recognize him. Travolta noted how what he called the "alpha males" would behave. "Their girlfriends would come up, and [the guys would] say, 'Hey, stay away from him, don't bug Travolta,' and they'd actually push the girls away," Travolta recounted in a 2007 interview with . "Tony Manero's whole male-chauvinist thing I got from watching those guys in the discos."

As preparations for Saturday Night Fever were well under way, problems arose with director John Avildsen. According to Kevin McCormick, Avildsen and Stigwood had increasingly different ideas on what Saturday Night Fever should be and began butting heads. For one thing, Avildsen wanted to tone down the character of Tony Manero - some felt he was trying to make Tony into another Rocky Balboa. John Travolta was not pleased. "He wanted me to be this kind of guy that did all the favors in the neighborhood," said Travolta in a 1996 interview. "It was a sweet idea, but it was not the movie that I had signed on to do, so frankly, I was just very unhappy with the direction it was going."

Soon it became clear that Avildsen's vision of the film was out of synch with everyone else's. "...it just got to a point where Avildsen wanted to be put out of his misery," Kevin McCormick told Vanity Fair. "He was acting provocatively: 'Travolta's too fat. He can't dance, he can't do this, he can't do that.'" Avildsen also wanted to make major changes to the script, which didn't sit well with Robert Stigwood. "I told him that Norman Wexler's script was so brilliant that I just wanted ten minutes cut," said Stigwood according to the book Travolta: The Life. "I told him there would be no new script--he had to shoot Wexler's. He refused and so I said, 'I'm afraid you'll have to go.' At that point my office called me, because they knew about the meeting, and said, 'Perhaps you should know that John Avildsen's been nominated for the Best Director Oscar® for Rocky.' I had to stop and congratulate Avildsen. He said, 'I suppose this'll make a difference?' I said, 'No. You shoot the Wexler screenplay or you go.'" Avildsen went.

Within two days a new director, John Badham, was hired to replace Avildsen. Badham had done some television and one feature film called The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings (1976) with Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor and James Earl Jones. He didn't have much experience at that point in his career, but he was talented and ambitious and most importantly, he got along with everyone and was on the same page creatively as Stigwood and Norman Wexler.

Badham came on board with just three weeks left before principal photography was to begin on Saturday Night Fever. There was still a huge amount of work to be done with far too little time. There were constant scripts changes, locations still needed to be scouted, and a leading lady for Travolta had not yet been found.

Hundreds of young actresses in Hollywood and New York tested for the role of Stephanie, the Brooklyn girl who shows Tony that there is life beyond Bay Ridge. "It was the most difficult part to cast," said director John Badham, "because you wanted somebody who had a very real quality for Brooklyn. You wanted somebody who seemed like they grew up in the neighborhood who didn't seem like a pretty Hollywood girl, but she was still attractive, and somehow you wanted somebody who had some charm and fun to her."

It was a chance encounter with Robert Stigwood's nephew that led actress Karen Lynn Gorney to get the role. By coincidence, Gorney, who was appearing on the soap opera All My Children at the time, shared a taxi one day in New York with Stigwood's nephew who told her about Saturday Night Fever and the problem his uncle was having finding someone to play Stephanie. When he described the character to her, Gorney knew instinctively that she would be perfect for it. "That's me!" she exclaimed to him. As soon as she exited the cab Gorney called her agent and insisted that he get her an audition, and he did. She impressed everyone with her natural style, giving Stephanie a tough but vulnerable quality. Gorney was hired immediately, and she knew it would be the chance of a lifetime.

Badham and his team scouted dozens of discos all over New York looking for the right one to double as the 2001 Odyssey for the film. However, no matter how many they looked at, they kept coming back to the real McCoy. The actual 2001 Odyssey disco in Bay Ridge was completely authentic and perfect, so they decided to use it.

Badham and his production team decided to give the 2001 a slight makeover before cameras rolled. They added a new $15,000 dance floor with multicolored lights that were designed to flash in rhythm with the music. There was a fight over what colors the floor would actually be. According to Badham, production designer Charles Bailey wanted there to be green in the floor, but cinematographer Ralph D. Bode told him that green would make all of the actors' faces look green. Bode eventually got his way, and the color green stayed off of the floor. In addition, Bailey lined the plain walls of the disco with ordinary aluminum foil and hung up Christmas lights to give the place some sparkle. When the owner of the 2001 saw the new makeover, he was thrilled. "You boys made my place look great!" he said.

All wardrobe for Saturday Night Fever was purchased off the rack - nothing was specially designed--in order to add to the film's authenticity, including Travolta's famous white suit worn in the finale. At first, Travolta wanted the suit to be black. He was insistent on it. However, costume designer Patrizia von Brandenstein disagreed. "When we went to clubs, particularly the 2001, we loved the strobing effect the big block lights had on white," she said according to the book Travolta: The Life. "Also someone casually said at a meeting that John was at, 'But heroes wear white.' Exactly." Still Travolta wasn't sold on the idea. To convince him that the suit should be white, John Badham took Travolta aside and told him that if his suit was black while Karen Lynn Gorney's dress was light-colored, then all eyes would go directly to Gorney during their big dance contest scene. That did it. Soon thereafter he and von Brandenstein went shopping together and purchased two identical white three-piece suits. "The whole point had to be that it wasn't a designer suit," explained von Brandenstein, "it was worn by a Brooklyn kid who could barely afford to go out on a Saturday night but spent eighty per cent of his income on clothes."

Last but not least, for a film that centered around a disco, Robert Stigwood knew that the choice of music for the soundtrack would be extremely important. The Bee Gees were an Australian pop group made up of three talented brothers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb. At the time, they had a few solid hit records to their name including "To Love Somebody" and "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart", but creatively they were in a rut and trying to find a way to make their music relevant in the 1970s. Stigwood, with whom they already had a working relationship, approached the band about providing some songs for Saturday Night Fever. The brothers were busy working on new material while staying at a chateau in France when Stigwood visited them. The Bee Gees played Stigwood some songs they were planning to use for their own album including "How Deep is Your Love?", "Stayin' Alive," "More Than a Woman" and "If I Can't Have You." Stigwood loved the songs and immediately asked to use them in the film. "We still had no concept of the movie, except some kind of rough script that they'd brought with them," Barry Gibb told Vanity Fair in 2007. "You've got to remember, we were fairly dead in the water at that point...the Bee Gees' sound was basically tired. We needed something new...We didn't know what was going to happen."

No one had any idea what was going to happen. According to John Badham, at that point Saturday Night Fever was just a little film that Paramount didn't particularly believe in because it was considered too vulgar to do any serious business. As a result, the film flew under the radar with no one guessing that Saturday Night Fever would explode as a pop cultural phenomenon beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

by Andrea Passafiume